And this is precisely the sticking point for me. If you don’t care if evolution is true then you will learn to tolerate it in your studies. Unfortunately, I can have no part of this.
I wish you well for the most part of what you do that pertains to truth, that is. You have interesting ideas, but for me you did not succeed in bridge-building.
The way @r_speir truncates the quote is very telling…
What good is creationism if it is not committed to Scripture?
Thanks for your candid response. You never answered my question though. Is your problem with TIME (progressive creation) or the notion of KINDS coming via other kinds (Theistic evolution)?
And yes I will tolerate it to the degree that it doesn’t conflict with the clear assertions in the text. In fact, there is an explicit instance of “evolution” (likely on the miraculous side) in Genesis 3, where God curses a walking serpent-like creature to suddenly be a dust sucking crawling serpent. That appears to be a mutation of one “kind” to another. I use this example just to demonstrate that its not fair to entirely dismiss God’s mediate creation of “kinds” from previous kinds if He so chooses. Can you not at least be a little flexible there?
I did that on purpose because they are mutually exclusive to me. You cannot be faithful to the text and tolerate evolution.
Neither is necessary to understand God, Creation, and the text. Why do you feel that you must “go there”? You never answered my question. Why? What possibly motivates you to even begin to tolerate either view - progressive or theistic?
Naw, you are reaching too far to make a point and you are going to fall. It is not even necessary to entertain such a notion as “mutation” in this example.
Ok, well I guess our discourse is finished. I guess we will find out one day in glory, when we have full knowledge, whether or not your dogmatic approach is correct, or if you are proverbially “opposing Galileo”. Blessings!
I did not see that coming! I was thinking “Old Religions”, Odd Relics, Ordinary Rattletraps, etc… 
We will have great times minimizing the slack here at PS. 
Why do you feel that you have to entertain any kind of evolutionary view at all? What drives you to this? If we all approached Genesis 1 and 2 without any pre-existing bias, that is, as children, not one of us would even have a thought of such a construct as evolution.
What is your motivation? If you are honest, you will have to admit it is purely external and not found innate in the text.
Hello @chad, I see r_speir is burning you in quickly. I look forward to hearing more, another viewpoint that bridges science and theology…welcome.
Thank you Mark!
Several of the early church fathers interpreted each day of Genesis as 1,000 years, without any knowledge of modern science. So to claim your position is the only position there ever was is naive. In addition, the “child should be able to understand it at first reading” approach to biblical theology is very naive. Children understand Revelation? Daniel 9? Romans 9? Give me a break.
Anyhow, can you honestly tell me that science, or should I say general revelation, has no bearing on any of your hermeneutics? When Jesus says “I am the door”, is it not your knowledge of general Revelation --that people don’t literally become doors-- that informs your hermeneutics? And hence you believe that is a symbolic genre due to general revelation. Even though the Bible says the “sun goes down”, is it not true that our knowledge of general revelation necessitates that such a statement is phenomenological, along with Galileo, whom the church originally persecuted for such a notion? So if you are trying to tell me that general Revelation should never inform our hermeneutic of special revelation, I would say that you have a contradictory viewpoint.
The bottom line is, my interpretation allows me to say: God made the earth in 7 days, as scripture asserts, but how that shakes out in details I can allow general revelation to weigh in. And in the end the two forms of revelation won’t contradict each other. If they do, the fault is in our hermeneutic or our science.
Source? Citation? Quote?
2 Peter 3:8 - But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years , and a thousand years as one day.
Probably that is the basis, I have quoted that scripture as an argument before, but I read it as an open-ended assertion that time is not relative to God, not that a day is specifically a thousand years.
So that means universal common ancestry correct? Just through more fits and starts? The only other time I’ve seen mediate progressive creationism mentioned it included UCA.
I edited it to say “several”… I was probably zealous to say “most”. But the point remains.
Here are a few:
“For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years [Gen. 5:5]. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression ‘The day of the Lord is a thousand years’ [Ps. 90:4] is connected with this subject” ( Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 81 [A.D. 155]).
“And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since ‘a day of the Lord is a thousand years,’ he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin” ( Against Heresies 5:23:2 [A.D. 189]).
“The first seven days in the divine arrangement contain seven thousand years” ( Treatises 11:11 [A.D. 250]).
I would argue that people were literally the door in Jesus time. Shepherds would keep sheep in rock enclosures with no gate, the body of the shepherd was the door. They did that to protect the sheep, there was no need for a door because they were the door, literally laying down their lives to protect the sheep. Not that it changes your point, I agree that revelation is the key to the door (pun intended).
I read your Middle ground article on Baptism and gifts of the Spirit. We have strikingly similar theological positions, though I am recently converted and still figuring out what my position is. I agree with much of what you have written, which seems an oddly unpopular position of bucking the “general consensus” for most of the mainstream Christian denominations. It will be interesting to dialogue with you.
Thanks Mark! Anytime you want to dialog just reach out. Blessings!
Most PMC models are UCA I believe: Gordon Mills, Stephen Jones are a couple I’ve heard of. But I personally believe Adam and Eve were specially created de novo. Since that’s what the scripture explicitly states.
But you are gonna soon learn that common descent and de novo creation could both be true at the same time… 
Thanks for the response. So you hold to UCA excluding us?